BREAKING: Miners Missing After Tremor Hits Coal Mine

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Four coal miners were rescued but seven others are missing after a tremor struck a mine in southern Poland, a spokeswoman for a coal mining company said Saturday.

A rescue operation began at 11:25 a.m. Saturday after a tremor occurred at the Zofiowka coal mine, said Katarzyna Jablonska-Bajer of the Jastrzebie Coal Company. The mine is located in the southern town of Jatrzebie-Zdroj near Poland’s border with the Czech Republic.

She said four miners were brought to the surface but contact was lost with seven others who were 2,950 feet (900 meters) under the ground. She said there was some hope the missing miners could have taken another exit from the corridor where they had been working.

“There has never been such a powerful tremor at the mine,” she said, adding that rescuers cannot go to the site because of high methane levels there.